Love your Couch, Love your Self

I'm on a new warpath - I intend to smother the CouchJumpers of this family with praise and positivity, a la Howard Glasser. I began this new campaign on Friday, and now that it's Tuesday I can say I have seen results. The plan of attack: Each time I see Sporty or Careful within ten feet of the couches, I paste on a huge smile and cheer "Yay! Sporty's not jumping on the couch!" "Hooray, Careful! Look how nicely you're sitting on the couch! 'Cause you're so big, you don't even have to bounce on it!" WOO-HOO. As of this writing, Sporty has not reverted to extra bouncy even once. Careful, being younger and less disciplined, has "forgotten" twice. (Just how he forgot with my smile threatening to split my face and my cheerleader's pom-pom's threatening to hit his is beyond my ken.) 

In other news: Bubbles was recuperating from his surgery at a far slower pace than anticipated. He is also no longer gaining weight as he used to. Dr. B. has connected the two and insists that Bubbles be on a far higher calorie diet, preferably with lots of proteins. Until he gains weight and heals up, he will not be eligible for close up surgery. That is a threat, especially now that Bubbles is sliding around on his tummy all day. This pulls his bag off faster than I can get a new one on. We're really  looking forward to the final surgery. 

Now, Bubbles likes to eat. But only one way. Bottles, spoons, cups just will not do it for him, and what I have to offer doesn't stack up to his need for fat. With a LOT of experimentation I have found that he will inhale whatever I put in a mesh baby feeder. He gets one ice cube of avocado-with-olive-oil for breakfast, one ice cube of banana-with-whey-protein for lunch, and as many ice cubes of rice-cereal-with-double-formula-and-olive-oil as I can get into the thing while he is still interested for supper. And in between, he's still nursing on his usual schedule. Sometimes I mix up the recipes or the timing, just to get him more interested. 

Our now weekly visits with Dr. B could be something out of a horror movie. After our weigh in and tsk-tsking over lack of weight, we hold Bubbles down in an awkward position so some epithelialized tissue can be burnt off. (Not sure if I wrote about that saga yet - we're toilet training around here, so I don't even remember if I ate breakfast . . . which, coming from me says a lot!) Bubbles screams throughout, and sometimes I feel like joining him. When we see that he's growing skin in place of the rogue cells, we schedule close up.

Okay . . .still in the thick of toilet training, so I'm not going to start a new post but update here: 

We were given a possible close up date. YAY!

Then we all came down with the flu. Remember how conscientious we were under duress? Fat lot it helped, huh? 

At our next weekly weigh in, I'll ask what this means for our surgery date. Please G-d, this won't make us ineligible for anesthesia on Close up Day. Pray for us.